Taxon Clean-Up To Do List

Last updated 1 day ago

EOL takes names and classifications from different content partners and organizes them into taxon concepts represented by EOL taxon pages. For example, have a look at the Names tab of the sperm whale page to see the names and classifications united in this taxon concept. The taxon concepts are created by an algorithm that tries to make sense of a huge amount of name and synonym data, taking into account various complications, e.g., variations in the spelling of author names. But sometimes things go horribly wrong, and EOL ends up with multiple pages for the same species, or several different taxa are inappropriately united in a common taxon concept.

We now have a new tool for master curators that makes it easier to manage taxon concepts on EOL. In this collection, we are keeping track of problematic taxon concepts that need to be either split (i.e., multiple taxa are inappropriately united on the same EOL page) or merged (i.e., there are multiple EOL pages for the same taxon). If you would like to add something to the collection, drop a note in the collection newsfeed below. We will then make you a manager of the collection, so you can add taxa that need to be split or merged. When adding items to this collection, please be sure to add detailed instructions in the annotation. If you request a taxon concept split, list the taxa that should be removed from the current concept and explain your request. Be sure to report both the name, including authority if available, and the provider ("Recognized by") of all taxa that should be moved to a new page. You can find this information in the Names tab of the page you want to split. If you request a taxon concept merge, add all the taxon pages to this collection that should be merged, then add a comment in the annotation of one of them explaining your merge request.

If you have posted something to this collection and it's gone now, the issue has probably been addressed. In that case, you will find the item in the Taxon Clean-Up Tasks Completed collection along with an explanation of what we did to fix the problem. If we have scoped out the issue but couldn't fix the problem right away, we may also have moved your item to the Taxon Clean-Up Tasks With Pending Issues collection or one of its component collections.

Could someone take a look at the media section for this taxon and see what's going on...I scanned through it just now and found numerous other species from several different taxa showing up, but couldn't find any immediately obvious homonyms etc...?

USDA Plants, NMNH Botany, and one Flickr record moved to http://eol.org/pages/59537. This page has been previously curated so this might be evidence of a regression. Also, a classification somewhere within http://eol.org/pages/59537 needs to be moved here or to a child taxon (contamination went both ways) but Jen has yet to track down the source of that problem.

I hid this on the Raphus cucullatus page (where it was erroneous identified to anyway), and added an association with Threskiornis solitarius, but it's still showing up on Raphidae. There is some funky historical classification with this taxon. Species 2000/ITIS show it still as Raphus solitarius, but it has been reclassified as Threskiornis although it was traditionally thought of as the "white dodo"

Images appear in the Echinothurioida gallery. -- Looks like some providers (OBIS, Inventaire National du Patrimoine Naturel) put Diadematidae in Echinothurioida/Echinothuroida. Need to find out if this is an error or a valid taxonomic opinion.